Steven Harz Music

Misplaced heart

The morning news showed a story about

a baby born with her heart on the outside

and as we watched together

you in your new world and me in our old one

I touched the screen as it beat outside of her body and

learned that doctors had to build a

hole in her chest to make room for what they called

her misplaced heart

When you were barely older than her

you molded your own discarded steel heart

into recycled brass knuckles

allowing you to fend off love in the name of hurt

and in the years since have passed time

smoking wooden matches while drinking milk jugs of gasoline

from live wire straws and riding shotgun

with ghosts of who you should have been

Abandonment hit you like a winter morning commandment

causing scars that remain tipped in red making them

look like God’s words in the Bible

and the light you are now walking toward is

our 120 watt incandescent messiah

and while you fought off love I searched for it and

where a baby with a point of view heart is loved and cried over you thought yours lost and never to be found

until buying milk by the carton I discovered your picture

So you leapt from the height of our love and

onto the rocks below hoping to induce amnesia so

you could forget your pain like they forgot about you

and if I could I would lure you home by cutting out a yellow construction paper crown with green lefty scissors

and building you a castle from forgotten fun house mirrors

that could change your point of view and

allow you to kiss yourself at every turn

Our first meeting was brief and you kissed me do hard

that it drew blood and made me reach for something sturdy

And although quick we were electric but before long

I knew you had to leave me and us and why

Now while you lay here and I watch over you

I take a break from holding your hand and brushing your hair

and think that your hospital sheets are so stiff that if

I took a running start leap maybe I could trampoline you

out of here or wherever you are

But instead the monitors still beep and

nurses chart the trajectory of your heart and

I invest a nickel in a returnable Fanta bottle

and twist into it a lost cause love note and

place it on your nightstand with hope that

there is a beach where you are that it can wash up upon

and in the hallway I see doctors in an end-game huddle and

I wonder if they’ve seen the little girl on television too and are they discussing how to build a hole in a chest for

another misplaced heart

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copyright 2014 Steven Harz

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“Misplaced Heart” is the title piece to a sampler of my work available for 99 cents at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Misplaced-Heart-poetry-short-fiction-ebook/dp/B00K32W134